Mountain View: Seldom-heard Sondheim tunes in 'Marry Me a Little'

How prodigious has Stephen Sondheim's output been in a career spanning 50-plus years? Impressive enough that even songs axed from his celebrated musicals have managed to be repurposed. That's what happened to several melodies cut from works like A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and A Little Night Music. They were turned into a revue called Marry Me a Little, a project conceived by playwright Craig Lucas and Norman René.

The show is about two lovelorn 20-somethings whiling away a Saturday night, alone in their respective apartments and unaware of each other's existence just a floor apart. The characters--Her and Him--reveal their hopes and fantasies in song alone; there is no dialogue.

TheatreWorks will present Marry Me a Little June 4-29 at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View. It stars Sharon Rietkerk and A.J. Shively as the lonelyhearts, with TheatreWorks Artistic Director Robert Kelley directing.

Shively made his Broadway debut in the 2010 revival of La Cage Aux Folles. He played the son, Jean-Michel.

Rietkerk, meanwhile, has played some of the most forward-leaning women in musical theater: Maria von Trapp from The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady's Eliza Doolittle, Marian the librarian in The Music Man.

This is Rietkerk's second Sondheim role; she played Johanna in a UC-Irvine (her alma mater) production of Sweeney Todd.

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It's "absolutely different," she says, to interpret songs by Sondheim as opposed to, say, Lerner and Lowe or Rodgers and Hammerstein.

"I love doing the classics [such as My Fair Lady] because you get to open up and 'sing out, Louise.' With Sondheim his lyrics are so poignant, he keeps you from getting too precious or too full voiced. It forces you to stay in the moment, and paces you in a different way. You've got to pay attention to the way he phrases things."

In fact, one of her wish-list roles is Dot from Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George. "Dot is vulnerable and charming and funny, and she loves so passionately," Rietkerk declares.

The singer/actress picked up a few lessons about making an impact when she took a master class from Broadway legend Barbara Cook. "I learned that simplicity rules the day," she recalls. "If you say the words honestly, the story is going to touch people. If you oversentimentalize, if you try to do too much, then the story gets lost."

As for returning to TheatreWorks, where she was last seen as Meg in the 2013 musical version of Little Women, Rietkerk is over the moon.

"I love working with them," she says. "They're committed to the work, from administrators to artists, the costume shop, props--everyone. They get really smart people to work with them and you feel that great energy throughout."

Tickets are $19 (30 and under) to $73; savings available for educators and seniors. $6 convenience fee for online and telephone orders. For more information or to order tickets visit theatreworks.org or call 650.463.1960.